October 24, 2024
Before the war,
the joy and excitement at the start of each school year in Gaza were palpable:
the buzz of markets filled with children buying their new uniforms and
stationery, teachers preparing lessons and decorating their classrooms, and
staff welcoming the students with songs and recreational activities on the
first day of classes.
Now, nearly two
months into the start of the academic year, young students from Gaza are
mourning the loss not only of family members, friends, and their homes, but of
their education as well.
"Pioneers of Hope", an educational initiative in a displacement camp in Deir Al-Balah. (Ruwaida Amer)
Salma Wafi, a
14-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza City — now displaced in the Al-Mawasi
humanitarian zone — has been waiting for the war to end so that she can enter
high school. “School was the most beautiful part in my life — I miss it every
day,” she told +972. “Everywhere else [in the world] kids are back in school.
Some of my teachers, friends and classmates whom I used to see all the time at
school, were killed. I’ve lost my childhood during this war.”
For Farah
Muqdad, 11, a year without school has deeply impacted her social life and sense
of self. “My school was on Al-Jalaa Street in Gaza City, and I used to go there
every day with my friends. [After school,] we would go to each other’s houses
to study for exams.”
Farah lost her
older brother Walid in March last year in Rafah and has been displaced several
times with her family since the start of the war, now sheltering in Al-Mawasi.
“School wasn’t just lessons or studying, it was a very different life. Now all
of this is in the past: we face extremely difficult conditions, unable to buy
food, so I must look for work to survive and help my family.”
According to the
UN, 87 percent of the school buildings in Gaza have been either partially or
entirely destroyed by Israeli strikes, and some have been converted into
Israeli military bases. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA) reports that over 10,600 children and more than 400 teachers
have been killed in Israeli military operations, while more than 15,300
students and 2,400 teachers have been injured.
Today, more than
625,000 deeply traumatized school-aged children in Gaza are being deprived of
their right to an education — what 19 independent UN experts and rapporteurs
described as part of “scholasticide,” a deliberate effort to destroy the
Palestinian education system. Meanwhile, a new UN Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA) report warns that Israel’s ongoing aerial bombardment and ground
invasion of Gaza could set back children and young people’s education by up to
five years.
As Ahmed Ayesh
Al-Najjar, director of public relations at the Education Ministry in Gaza,
notes, the widespread and systematic destruction of educational infrastructure
and the killing of thousands of students, teachers, and educational staff “has
made it nearly impossible for the ministry to restore the educational process
to its previous state.”
On Sept. 9, the
Education Ministry in Ramallah launched an online platform to provide remote
lessons for students in Gaza. Sadeq Khadour, the ministry’s spokesperson, told
+972 that “around 200,000 students registered for the online classes. We
consider this a big achievement because last year there was no teaching at
all.”
But it is
unclear how many students have been able to participate in such lessons, given
the frequent internet and power outages across the Strip. For Maram Al-Farra, a
38-year-old mother of four, the idea of remote classes as a substitute for
in-person education is unacceptable. “I feel that they [the ministry] think
this war is simple or like previous wars. We lost our homes, and we live in a
tent in Al-Mawasi. Using the internet in these circumstances is impossible.”
Suha
Al-Abdullah, a 40-year-old mother and teacher, also doubted the utility of this
new initiative. “I cannot follow these lessons, and neither can my children,
because we need the internet and more than one phone to use,” she explained.
“These things are not just difficult but impossible. As a teacher, I cannot
provide complete and useful information to my students except for in the
[physical] classroom.”
Inside the tent
schools, where ‘so many are eager to enroll’
With the
Ministry unable to implement an effective plan for the school year, teachers in
Gaza have been left to try to organize their own educational programs — and
some have taken it upon themselves to set up makeshift schools in shelters and
camps across the Strip.
“What do you
want to be when you grow up?” This is how Du’aa Qadih, 25, begins her day’s
English lessons with her students, who sit criss-cross on the floor. “A little
girl tells me that she wants to be a doctor, to help her brother or her wounded
mother, and another dreams of becoming an engineer or journalist. Every student
of mine has a big dream for when the war stops.”
Qadih, a
graduate of the English Language and Education Departments at the Islamic
University in Gaza and a current Master’s student in translation at Al-Azhar
University, was displaced from Shuja’iya at the start of the war and forced to
relocate three times, before settling in a camp in Deir Al-Balah in May. It was
upon her arrival in that camp that Qadih started to fear the war’s toll on the
educational prospects of Gaza’s children.
“As a teacher, I
realized the danger of forgoing education for more than 8 months, and the
importance of continuing the educational process,” she recalled to +972. “Our
students are the future generation, and rebuilding Gaza will only happen
through knowledge and learning.” Qadih started a classroom in one tent, but
today more than 550 students from first through 12th grade are participating in
her program, and she and a team of volunteers have secured several tents.
Qadih admits
that her work was never easy. “At first, I faced the terror of working with
children who were exposed to loss and deprivation, who had grown up under bombs
and airstrikes.” Many of these students had lost at least one family member, as
well as former peers and teachers. Under these circumstances, she decided to
begin by organizing simple social activities, and gradually return to education
through play.
“Activities and
competitions encourage children to focus and think,” Qadih explained. Before
teaching the academic subjects, “I had to restore their confidence and put a
smile on their faces.”
Hala Za’rab, 9,
who was displaced from Khan Younis, expressed her appreciation for Qadih’s
classes. “Ms. Du’aa brought back to our minds what we used to study at our
school which the occupation bombed at the beginning of the war. I miss every
detail of it [school] from the time I wake up to the time I return home.”
Qadih, too,
insisted that it is not just the students who have benefitted from her
initiative. “I know very well that these children may not survive this war. But
I try to instill hope in their hearts that they will one day become who they
want to be,” she affirmed. “And their aspirations fill me with hope as well.”
For Muhammad
Al-Khudari, a 38-year-old teacher from Rafah, what started in February as
homeschooling for his three children has expanded into a community-wide effort
to teach Arabic. Al-Khudari was expelled by the Israeli army from Al-Shifa
Hospital in November 2023, after surviving a strike on his home in Shuja’iya.
He and his family sought refuge in Rafah and were later forced to move to Deir
Al-Balah. But with each displacement, he made sure to bring his educational
materials with him. “My son asked me to let a friend in the neighboring tent
study with us, and I then decided to teach the children in the camp what I
teach my own children,” he explained to +972.
With his
engaging methods of storytelling, making use of puppets and colorful
illustrations, Al-Khudari’s Arabic language initiative has attracted a group of
60 students in Deir Al-Balah. While Muhammad focuses on teaching Arabic, a team
of volunteers has joined him to teach other basic subjects. “We all agreed to
provide whatever we can to help students follow up on their studies, especially
in the primary school grades, as they need constant reinforcement to
consolidate their previous knowledge.”
Even in the face
of immense difficulties, including the lack of school chairs, books, notebooks,
and ongoing Israeli bombardment, Al-Khudari intends to continue teaching.
“Interacting with the children gives me hope for a better future,” he said. “It
reminds me that we are a people who deserve life.”
One of the most
remarkable educational programs is the Al-Awael School, established by Leila
Wafi, a 42-year-old blind teacher and resident of Al-Mawasi who holds a PhD in
Educational Sciences. “I noticed the impact the war had on the students’ skills
and how they were forgetting the basics of their educational subjects,” she
told +972.
On a sandy piece
of land in Al-Mawasi, Wafi set up three classrooms made of tarps and plastic.
Al-Awael operates in three daily shifts: one in the morning and two in the
evening, with boys and girls separated into three-day periods for each group to
reach as many students as possible. Although each classroom originally fit only
20 students, Wafi and her colleagues managed to expand them to accommodate
around 74 students.
Now, a team of
80 volunteer instructors teach a full curriculum for the first through sixth
grade levels. Wafi organized the schedules, secured the necessary stationary,
and condensed educational materials for the teachers to streamline the teaching
process in a way that matches the school’s actual capabilities.
“We have a
waiting list of 500 students who want to join the school,” Wafi noted. “I ran
the school as if it were a normal academic year, under normal circumstances. It
included a full curriculum, homework, exams, certificates, a ceremony to honor
outstanding students, and gifts.” It is for this reason, she said, that so many
were eager to enroll.
The mother of
fifth-grader Iman Abu Asr, who was displaced from the Al-Nasr area west of Gaza
City to Al-Mawasi, hopes that the Education Ministry will officially recognize
the results of Leila’s program. “My daughter studied regularly at this school
despite all the circumstances, and she was able to regain a lot of information.
It was a dream for us for my daughter to join something like this during the
war.”
A temporary
reprieve
These tent
schools — albeit scattered and informal — have been a critical lifeline for
children, parents, and teachers themselves during the past year. Some worry,
however, that they won’t be sustainable for much longer. For Suha Al-Abdullah,
who has worked as a teacher in tents in Deir Al-Balah and Al-Mawasi, “the
teaching tents are difficult [to begin with], and they’re not a permanent
[solution]. We are approaching winter and no one will come to the lessons.”
She also
criticized the Education Ministry for failing to coordinate with the teachers
and program leaders to help them continue their work. “These are initiatives
from us as teachers to save [future] generations,” she explained, “but the
ministry has not communicated with any of us or supported them in order to
develop a plan to allow the children to keep benefitting.”
Sadeq Khadour,
the ministry’s spokesperson in Ramallah, told +972 that he is aware of the
challenges students and their families face in Gaza, and affirmed that the
ministry has been trying to aid private educational programs while expanding
access to its own online platforms. “We are trying to find solutions for the
students who do not have electronic devices. Our plan is comprehensive, and it
includes supporting the private teaching initiatives on the ground.”
But as the
Israeli assault intensifies throughout the Strip, and particularly in the
north, there is only so much that the ministry and individual teachers can do.
The number of students and teachers killed by Israeli forces, both in direct
attacks and from indirect causes such as illness, hunger, and lack of access to
necessary healthcare, continues to rise. Moreover, the constant displacement of
Gazan families, many of whom have ended up far from their areas of residence,
makes it difficult for the ministry to keep track of the number of students in
each educational zone.
Before the
Israeli army’s latest major offensive in northern Gaza, Amani Aby Raya, a
37-year-old teacher from Jabalia refugee camp and the director of a
kindergarten that was destroyed by Israeli forces in the first week of the war,
turned her kindergarten into a school for children aged 5 to 8. According to
Aby Raya, the school served more than 350 children, who were divided into nine
classes and received 10 hours of instruction per week.
“The place is
not suitable, as children study without chairs, tables, or even toilets and sit
on mats in a semi-standing prayer hall in high temperatures amid the spread of
insects,” she explained. But “children, like the people of Gaza, have adapted
to this harsh environment, and their desire for education pushes them to
continue studying.”
More difficult
than the education itself, Aby Raya said, is the effort to provide
psychological relief and therapy for behavioral problems, as most of the
students she and her colleagues have become homeless and lost parents,
siblings, other relatives and classmates.
Through her
initiative, Aby Raya hoped to “lift children out of the tragic educational and
psychological reality that was imposed on them.” She and her colleagues “tried
to triumph by raising the children’s voices and repeating the phrases of the
lessons so that their collective voice is louder than the noise [of the drones]
overhead.” But Aby Raya was forced to leave Jabalia last week, as Israel
besieged the camp. She is now in Gaza City and all educational initiatives in
the north have ceased.
Qassam
Muaddi
October
23, 2024
People make their way amid the rubble of buildings destroyed during
Israeli bombardment of the the Jabalia refugee on August 31, 2024.
(Photo: Hadi Daoud / APA Images)
Tens
of thousands of displaced Palestinians across northern Gaza have been forced on
a death march by the Israeli army since Monday, October 21. Northern Gaza is
being emptied of its inhabitants, and one of Israel’s strategies in achieving
this goal is to take out the area’s few remaining social institutions:
hospitals.
As
part of its ongoing offensive on northern Gaza, the Israeli army has been
trying to clear out the entire area north of Gaza City for the past 18 days. At
least 200,000 people continue to stay there, many of them fearing, according to
local testimonies, that they will be targeted on the way south or in
Israeli-designated “safe zones,” which have been consistently bombarded over
recent months. The ongoing siege includes a second siege-within-the-siege on
the Jabalia refugee camp, accompanied by a massive bombing and shelling
campaign that is forcing tens of thousands of people to leave their homes. Many
of them have headed to Beit Lahia, and particularly to Kamal Adwan Hospital.
Over the past 18 days, the hospital has been issuing daily calls for help, warning
of an imminent humanitarian catastrophe.
The
Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia is one of three functioning hospitals in the
northern Gaza governorate. The hospital is the only fully functional medical
center in the north, with a specialized neonatal section for newborns.
The
two other hospitals in Gaza are barely functional. The Indonesian Hospital in
the town of Sheikh Zayed went out of services last week after Israeli troops
besieged it and invaded its surroundings. Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, smaller
in size, has suspended most of its services and only functions at a limited
capacity. On Tuesday, October 22, the al-Awda Hospital’s director, Bakr Abu
Safiyeh, told al-Ghad TV that Israeli quadcopter drones were opening fire
directly on the hospital.
Dr.
Baker said that Israeli quadcopters were also opening fire on anybody moving in
the streets, including ambulances. According to the hospital director, an
Israeli strike targeted an ambulance carrying a mother who had just given
birth. The mother was killed, Dr. Baker said, and the baby was later found
alive by rescue teams and was taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital’s neonatal section.
Why
targeting hospitals is the key to emptying northern Gaza
Named
after Kamal Adwan, a Palestinian resistance leader assassinated by Israel in
Beirut in 1973, the hospital has become a central destination for the wounded
and the displaced. Like most other hospitals in Gaza over the past year of
genocidal war, Kamal Adwan Hospital is the only remaining public space in
northern Gaza that offers services and provides shelter, representing the
backbone of Gazan civil society and social cohesion. That is why Israel is
targeting it, with the aim of forcibly expelling the population in service of
the Israeli plan to empty the north. This has now come to be called “the
Generals’ Plan.”
Two
weeks before Israel began the current siege, Netanyahu told Israeli lawmakers
that he was considering the “Generals’ plan,” so named for the proposal put
forward by senior Israeli army officials in early September based on the vision
of retired Israeli general Giora Eiland, who wrote an Op-Ed a year ago
explaining how northern Gaza should be emptied of the entire population through
mass starvation and extermination.
The
plan is an enhanced version of what Israel has already been doing for the past
year, including targeting and forcibly evacuating hospitals. Israeli forces
raided al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for the first time in November, when the
compound and its surroundings were crowded with displaced families, and forced
medics, patients, and displaced people to leave. But in February, when Israeli
forces began to withdraw from parts of Gaza, including Gaza City, Palestinians
returned to al-Shifa and began to operate parts of it again as displaced
families began to take over its spaces once more.
Then,
in April, Israeli forces invaded al-Shifa a second time in a raid that lasted
several weeks with the purpose of accelerating social collapse in Gaza City.
The Israeli army combed the hospital building by building and floor by floor,
destroying equipment and, according to survivor testimonies gathered by
Mondoweiss at the time, executing hundreds of civil government employees and
separating people into differently-colored bracelet. At the end of the
operation, Dr. Marwan Abu Saada, Deputy Director of al-Shifa, told UN News that
the destruction of al-Shifa “took out the heart of the health system in the
Gaza Strip,” adding that “al-Shifa is finished forever.”
In
December 2023, two months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza, Israeli forces
raided the Kamal Adwan hospital and forced medical staff, patients, and
displaced civilians to evacuate. The hospital resumed partial services in July
after joint efforts by the World Health Organization and other international
parties, coupled with pressure on Israel to allow limited quantities of
humanitarian aid into the north.
As
Israel set its eyes on Gaza’s northernmost governorate to execute Eiland’s
plan, Kamal Adwan Hospital is now the last bastion of Palestinian steadfastness
in the north. This makes it a prime target in the ongoing Israeli offensive.
Kamal Adwan came close to completely shutting down multiple times, mainly due
to the lack of fuel for power generators, saved every time by intensified
pressure by international parties on Israel to allow limited quantities of fuel
to pass through
Kamal
Adwan Hospital weathers siege and overcapacity
“We
need blood units, shrouds for the dead, doctors, and food,” Dr. Husam Abu
Safiyeh, director of Kamal Adwan hospital, told the media on Wednesday, October
23, signaling that Israeli forces had cut off internet services from the area.
The
day before, on October 22, Dr. Abu Safiyeh told the media that the hospital had
run out of blood units, had a shortage of medical staff, that the available
staff was hungry and exhausted, and that the power generators were about to run
out of fuel.
Dr.
Abu Safiyeh also indicated that the hospital was treating 130 wounded,
including 14 on ventilators, and that medics were unable to evacuate the
wounded from the streets because of the risk of being targeted by Israeli
quadcopter fire. He also called upon international entities to open a
humanitarian route to evacuate the wounded, and described his hospital as “a
mass grave.”
A
week earlier, on October 16, Dr. Abu Safiyeh posted a video he took inside the
Kamal Adwan Hospital’s newborn children’s section. The video showed babies
inside incubators and Palestinian nurses caring for them. “These are children
with difficult cases, and more cases are on the way, as we have scheduled
cesarean births for tomorrow,” he said while filming.
“This
baby girl here arrived after her family was targeted by [an Israeli] strike,”
said Abu Safiyeh while filming one particular newborn. “Her mother and father
were martyred, as well as her grandmother, and she is now alone with a wound to
the head and a secondary inflammation,” he explained. “If fuel doesn’t arrive
[for power generators] there will be a humanitarian catastrophe for these
children,” he warned.
In
the hospital’s sections, the medical staff described their working conditions.
“There are cases of burning, internal bleeding, skull fractures, and limb
amputations,” Dr. Ameen Abu Amshah, serving at Kamal Adwan, told Mondoweiss.
“Out of every 10 to 15 wounded we receive at once, an average of seven are
urgent cases for surgery. We just don’t have the capacity for all this, and we
are forced to prioritize the cases that can be saved” said Dr. Abu Amshah.
“The
occupation army has been ordering doctors to leave, including through phone
calls,” said Abu Amshah. “This is an extermination. Northern Gaza is being
exterminated, Jabalia is being exterminated, and Kamal Adwan hospital is being
exterminated, but we will not leave.”
Forced
death march
On
Tuesday, October 23, Israeli drones dropped leaflets and aired voice messages
at Palestinians who remained in the surroundings of Kamal Adwan and inside its
premises, ordering them to leave. Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians were
being gathered and forced to move out of other shelters after arresting men
among them. Thousands were left stranded in the street far away from the last
standing public facilities and forced to take the road yet again at gunpoint,
as shown by footage aired by the Israeli army.
US Secretary of
State Antony Blinken flew into Israel on Tuesday pressing for a ceasefire in
Gaza following the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
But a ceasefire
was the last thing on the mind of the Knesset members, government ministers and
hundreds of Israeli settlers who convened a day earlier to plan the future of
the enclave.
These plans did
not include any kind of negotiation. There was one subject under discussion at
the conference, timed to coincide with the annual Sukkot religious holiday
which marks the exodus of the Jews from Egypt.
Israel’s
settlement of Gaza.
The event,
organised by the settler organisation Nahala, was held just three kilometres
from the Gaza frontier.
Significantly it
was in a closed military zone, and this conference was held under army
protection.
The regular thud
of outgoing artillery fire interrupted speeches, and was greeted by applause
and cries of, “God bless our brave soldiers.”
Many of the men
present carried machine guns or pistols.
“In the event of
a terrorist infiltration,” boomed the PA announcer, “we ask you please not to
fire your weapon. Let the security handle it. This is for everyone’s safety.”
Those present at
the conference included supporters from the United States, South Africa and
Australia.
One great
grandmother from Melbourne wore a sticker saying in Hebrew that “Gaza is part
of Israel” and on the other “Kahane was right”.
A number of
those at the conference carried stickers celebrating Meir Kahane, the late
American-born rabbi and convicted terrorist who advocated that
Palestiniansshould be forced out of Israel.
Nahala leader
Daniella Weiss, one of the heroes of the conference, boasted that families were
ready to move to the edge of the Gaza border, claiming that Nahala had already
entered a deal worth “millions of dollars” for temporary housing units as a
preliminary to settlement of the Strip.
She predicted:
“You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza.”
Gaza seafront ‘a
bargain’
Which would be
excellent business for Or Yomtovyan, an activist for Israeli security minister
Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Jewish Power party.
Yomtovyan is in
the property business. Speaking outside the Jewish Power sukkot (tent) he told
MEE that settling Gaza would be “a good solution for the real estate problem.
We are a small country and there’s big land here we can use.”
Asked when Gaza
could be occupied, he replied: “First things first. As soon as possible.”
Asked by MEE how
much seafront property in Gaza might be worth, he replied “it will be a
bargain. Properties in Tel Aviv next to the sea cost 20-50 million shekels
[$5m-$13m]. Here we can sell cheap.”
Yomtovyan said
he was 16th on Jewish Power’s parliamentary candidates list, and predicted that
its leader, Ben Gvir, would be Israel’s next prime minister after Netanyahu.
It would be a
serious error to dismiss the conference as a fringe event reflecting the wild
fantasies of Israel’s settler movement. Big money and top politicians have a
stake in the future of Gaza.
The event was
attended by senior government ministers and Knesset members, including several
from Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Finance minister
Bezalel Smotrich, who is also in charge of civil administration in the West
Bank and has called for Israel to annex the occupied Palestinian territory, was
there.
But Ben Gvir was
the star of the show, joining in communal dancing and hailed by many others
present as the next prime minister.
Ben Gvir
maintained that Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on 7 October last year, in
which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and hundreds more taken hostage, had
changed the mindset of Israelis.
“We are the
owners of this land,” he said. “They understand that when Israel acts like the
rightful owners of this land, that is what brings results.”
He told his
audience that Israel would encourage what he called the “voluntary transfer of
all Gazan citizens”, adding “We will offer them the opportunity to move to
other countries because that land belongs to us”.
Ben Gvir and
Smotrich are senior members of the Likud-led coalition that governs Israel.
And recent
history shows that these two settler leaders get what they want.
This is partly a
result of growing popular support, but above all because Netanyahu’s government
would fall without them. Ben Gvir’s vision of a Palestinian-free Gaza is backed
by raw power.
Nahala leader
Daniella Weiss alluded to this new settler power when she referenced
Netanyahu’s statement earlier this year that the idea of Gaza settlement was
“unrealistic”.
She pointed out
that many had made the same observation of the West Bank, which is today
overrun by Israeli settlers.
“We have the
political support, the public support and the experience of 55 years of
settling Judea [and] Samaria [the occupied West Bank] and the Golan Heights.
Three hundred and 50 settlements . We have accumulated a lot of experience to
do this politically.”
As far as she is
concerned, the Palestinians must leave Gaza. She told a crowd of international
journalists that they should go “to England, to Africa, to Turkey. Just as
people of Afghanistan moved during the war, such as people of Syria, such as
people from Ukraine.”
The
Palestinians, emphasised Weiss “will not stay in Gaza by no means”.
‘No mercy’
Likud MPs
supported much of what Weiss had to say.
Knesset member
Ariel Kallner told MEE there should be “settlements in North Gaza and strategic
places like the Philadelphi corridor [a strip of land along Gaza’s southern
border with Egypt]”, adding that many members of Likud supported the plan.
He told MEE that
Gaza “made this massacre when receiving so many privileges they never had
before.
“We need to
understand what is radical Islam, what is the Palestinian Authority. They
supported October 7th. They support terrorists. We need the world to understand
such regimes should be eliminated. The civilisation should understand that
these barbarian regimes and ideologies are enemies of civilisation.”
Asked what he
thought about the so-called “Generals’ Plan” currently in operation in north
Gaza, which many see as a strategy of ethnic cleansing to drive Palestinians
out of the territory or kill those who stay, Kallner said it was “a very, very
reasonable plan”.
“There are also
other plans to eliminate the evil Hamas regime,” he added, stressing the need
to weaken Hamas by taking control of humanitarian aid.
Another Likud
Knesset member, Tally Gotliv, also threw her weight behind Gaza settlements,
telling MEE: “I made it clear from the first day of the war that one of our
goals should be the occupation of north Gaza.”
When asked by
MEE whether Netanyahu supported the plan, Gotliv replied: “I have no doubt that
he is supporting the settlement of Gaza because it will bring more security not
just for the area around Gaza Strip but for Israel.“
MEE asked her
what should happen to Gaza residents.
“The people in
the north of Gaza allowed the Hamas fighters to go through on October 7th,” she
said.
“I have no
mercy. The only mercy we have is that we give them the chance to leave… They
should leave and go to the south.”
The settlers did
not have it all their own way. As we arrived in the car park, a number of
Israelis waving yellow flags in protest against the conference had gathered to
read out the names of the hostages and accuse the organisers of sacrificing
their lives in pursuit of war in Gaza.
On the way to
the conference, we drove through areas that had been devastated on 7 October
last year.
The event gained
extra symbolic significance because last year the Sukkot thanksgiving
celebration coincided with the Hamas-led attacks.
We passed close
to the Be’eri Kibbutz, where 101 civilians and 31 security personnel were
killed. At several points, pilgrims come to pay tribute to the victims.
In the distance
smoke billowed from the Jabalia refugee camp, currently under attack by an
Israeli tank assault and air strikes which have killed dozens of people in
recent days, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Israelis had
parked their cars at one vantage point to watch as Gaza continued to burn.
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